2024-10-08
Opportunity Structures: Kitschelt identified “input” structures and “output” structures as key variables for shaping the trajectory of anti-nuclear movements.
Are there more dimensions to consider here?
| Charles Brockett | Hanspeter Kriesi | Dieter Rucht | Sidney Tarrow |
|---|---|---|---|
| Access points | Institutional structures | Access to the party system | Openness of the polity |
| Elite fragmentation | Informal conflict resolution procedures | Actor-specific alliance structures | Stability of political alignments |
| Level of repression | Configuration of power regarding specific challengers | Actor-specific conflict structures | Elite divisions |
Kitschelt looks at diversity among a set western democracies, what changes when we extend the scope outside that region/set of regimes?
We need to simplify, but how much is too much?
Examples: Contemporary U.S., France, Germany etc.
Explicit or implicit legal protections for protest
Mechanisms for peaceful transitions or change in policy
Ability to effectively repress transgressive contention and reward compliance
Examples: Yemen, Burma
States may lack the capacity to repress effectively, but also they don’t offer concessions
Protests often evolve into civil war and revolutions
Examples: China, Hungary*, Iran
There’s an (imperfect) correlation between state capacity and democracy, so these are comparatively more rare
Contention happens, but it rarely threatens (and sometimes strengthens) the state.
All states use repression!
But they vary in terms of their willingness, ability to use it, the actions and groups they repress.
“I no longer wanted to fight. At whom was I going to fire? At children and youths who did not completely realize what they were doing?” - Maximiliano Hernández Martínez (president of El Salvador from 1935 - 1944)
Quoted in: Brockett, Charles D.. Political Movements and Violence in Central America (Cambridge Studies in Contentious Politics) (p. 199). Cambridge University Press.